Students were rehearsing for a play about Columbine, then the Borderline shooting happened

California Lutheran University drama students Jacob White (left) and Gabrielle Reublin perform one of the scenes in Act 1 with fellow cast members in their production of "Columbinus." The play is based on the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, and those involved hope it focuses new attention on the troubling rise in the number of school shootings.(Photo11: JOE LUMAYA/SPECIAL TO THE STAR)Buy Photo

Gabrielle Reublin was still in costume as a teen from Columbine High School in 1999 when she first heard about the shooting at the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks.

She and a group of California Lutheran University were at their final dress rehearsal for "Columbinus," a play about the April 20,1999, massacre by two students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, that was set to start Thursday.

Then a gunman, later identified as Ian David Long, 28, of Newbury Park, walked into the Borderline late Wednesday and killed 12 people, including a Ventura County Sheriff's Office sergeant, before turning the gun on himself.

"We were just kind of all in shock," Reublin said. "We couldn't believe it, and we know so many people that go there every week. We really didn't know who to call first to check on them. ... It was too weird. It was very strange for us. We had just finished the show, which is so weirdly tied to what was going on and then this happens."

"Some of us more than others knew the one victim who died from CLU, and it's been very hard for those people," Reublin said. "It's been hard for us all."

"Columbinus" shows were scheduled to run through this past weekend but were canceled. The students who've been working on it for months hope they are able to return to the stage this week.

The 2005 drama by Stephen Kram and PJ Paparelli weaves together police evidence, excerpts from the shooters’ journals and interviews with parents, survivors and community leaders to depict the day of the shooting and the aftermath. It looks at adolescent archetypes and draws on nationwide interviews with high school students.

In this image taken from video, a victim is carried from the scene of a shooting, Wednesday in Thousand Oaks. A hooded gunman dressed entirely in black opened fire on a crowd at the Borderline Bar & Grill holding a weekly college night, killing 12 people and sending hundreds fleeing, including some who used barstools to break windows and escape, authorities said Thursday. The gunman was later found dead at the scene.(Photo11: RMG News via AP)

When Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 13 and wounded more than 20 others at Columbine High School before killing themselves, it was the start of the school shooting epidemic. Now, with a mass shooting down the road from the university, the students say it's even more important to go on with the show.

"We were always doing it because we wanted to spread awareness about the bigger issues, about gun violence," Reublin said.

Jacob White, who plays the shooter Klebold, said the play was always intended to spark a larger conversation about gun violence and the lives it changes. He told The Star in an interview earlier this month that the production focuses on the students of Columbine High School and doesn't glorify the shooting, or the shooters, in any way.

"The timing of this was cruelly ironic," White said Friday. "We needed to cancel the first week because that's way too soon to be doing the play after the shooting. But we need to keep the second week on. ... Our show brings awareness to the issue."

White and Reublin both said the cast members had come together and leaned on one another after the shooting. They continued to lean on one another Friday as CLU was on alert with the Woolsey Fire raging nearby. Reublin, who lives in Thousand Oaks, had to evacuate from her family's home late Thursday but was still keeping in touch with her castmates and friends Friday.

"All of this isn't about us as individuals," White said. "This is about the community."

The students hope the university decides to let them continue with the show. They said they should know sometime next week.

"Now, I mean it's horrible, but we spent two months trying to make this real for ourselves, to find something to relate this to, and now we have this," Reublin said. "The line between theater and real life has kind of blurred now. Before, we could go to rehearsal and we could be in it and be upset and emotional and then we could go home and feel safe again, and now that's just not necessarily the case.

"It's awful, but, if anything, it'll make our performance more real," she said.